Between Queens and the Cities


Book Description

"Between Queens and the cities is the riveting tale of a 19-year-old Nepali gay man and his long journey from Kathmandu to New York and back. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Nepal, the author reveals, with elan and ease, queer spaces where friendships are fostered outside the normalcy accorded to family and marriage. In the process, he introduces many fellow travellers of the LGBTIQ community. with rare courage and outrageous emothional honesty, the author lays bare the ceaseless conflict of the mind and heart in exporing sexuality. He also compels the reader to interrogate dominant notions regarding love and longing and in doing so, reveals dynamic relationships that are not confined to the rrealm of queer intimacy alone. This memoir on the shaping of queer identity in the South Asian context bristles with deeper questions regarding belonging."--- page 4 of cover




Dairy Queens


Book Description

In a lively narrative that spans more than two centuries, Meredith Martin tells the story of a royal and aristocratic building type that has been largely forgotten today: the pleasure dairy of early modern France. These garden structures—most famously the faux-rustic, white marble dairy built for Marie-Antoinette’s Hameau at Versailles—have long been dismissed as the trifling follies of a reckless elite. Martin challenges such assumptions and reveals the pivotal role that pleasure dairies played in cultural and political life, especially with respect to polarizing debates about nobility, femininity, and domesticity. Together with other forms of pastoral architecture such as model farms and hermitages, pleasure dairies were crucial arenas for elite women to exercise and experiment with identity and power. Opening with Catherine de’ Medici’s lavish dairy at Fontainebleau (c. 1560), Martin’s book explores how French queens and noblewomen used pleasure dairies to naturalize their status, display their cultivated tastes, and proclaim their virtue as nurturing mothers and capable estate managers. Pleasure dairies also provided women with a site to promote good health, by spending time in salubrious gardens and consuming fresh milk. Illustrated with a dazzling array of images and photographs, Dairy Queens sheds new light on architecture, self, and society in the ancien régime.




Women Members of the Constituent Assembly


Book Description

"This is a joint publication by Women's Caucus, Constituent Assembly Secretariat, Nepal Law Society and International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance"--T.p. verso.




Political Change and Public Culture in Post-1990 Nepal


Book Description

This book explores various domains of the Nepali public sphere in which ideas about democracy and citizenship have been debated and contested since 1990. It investigates the ways in which the public meaning of the major political and sociocultural changes that occurred in Nepal between 1990 and 2013 was constructed, conveyed and consumed. These changes took place against the backdrop of an enormous growth in literacy, the proliferation of print and broadcast media, the emergence of a public discourse on human rights, and the vigorous reassertion of linguistic, ethnic and regional identities. Scholars from a range of different disciplinary locations delve into debates on rumours, ethnicity and identity, activism and gender to provide empirically grounded histories of the nation during one of its most important political transitions.




Civil Society in Uncivil Places


Book Description

"This monograph analyzes the role of civil society in the massive political mobilization and upheavals of 2006 in Nepal that swept away King Gyanendra's direct rule and dramatically altered the structure and character of the Nepali state and politics. Although the opposition had become successful due to a strategic alliance between the seven parliamentary parties and the Maoist rebels, civil society was catapulted into prominence during the historic protests as a result of national and international activities in opposition to the king's government. This process offers new insights into the role of civil society in the developing world. By focusing on the momentous events of the nineteen-day general strike from April 6-24, 2006, that brought down the 400-year-old Nepali royal dynasty, the study highlights the implications of civil society action within the larger political arena involving conventional actors such as political parties, trade unions, armed revels, and foreign actors. he detailed examination of civil society's involvement in Nepali regime change sheds light on four important themes in the study of civil society. The first relates to a clear distinction between civil society as a spontaneous philosophical and associational form in the West and its mimetic articulation in the developing. The second addresses the nature of the relationship between civil society and political society and the way the former generates its moral authority and efficacy based on claims to universal reason, knowledge, and techniques of polymorphous power. The third theme explores the connection between the ideological and material basis of civil society and distinguishes between its autonomous Western origin and the recent growth in the developing world. Finally, civil society is examined in the international area: the example of Nepal reveals ways in which civil societies in the developing world are burgeoning as alternative policy instruments in interstate relations"--P. [4] of cover.




Demoting Vishnu


Book Description

"This book examines how public ritual once placed kings at the privileged apex of Nepal's government, and how in the 21st century those same rituals stopped serving the king and turned instead to authorize party-based politicians. Ritual upheaval undermined the institutional logic of monarchy, and demonstrated that kingship was contingent/dispensable"--




Nepal


Book Description

This comprehensive history of Nepal spans pre-historic times and the Licchavi Period to more recent developments, such as the Maoist insurgency and the rise of the republic. In addition to religious history and histories of selected regions (Mustang, Sherpa, Tarai, and others), it covers the nation's relations with its powerful neighbors and its cultural aspects, especially its rich history of arts, architecture, and crafts.




The Bloodstained Throne


Book Description

To the palace by the sword Nepal, the land of Buddhism and misty mountains, is not a nation whose history one would expect to be filled with blood. And yet, the struggle to gain and keep the control over the mountain kingdom is one marked by a long history of violence and murder. The Bloodstained Throne is a translation of Aba Yasto Kahilyai Nahos, a compilation of historical essays that recount some of the bloody battles for power in a tumultuous period—a phase that spanned more than one hundred years. This tale of the machinations, massacre and bloodletting that rocked Nepal’s power centre—the royal palace—will give you a rare and fascinating glimpse into one of the least-known and most violent power struggles that South Asia has ever seen.